


the heart speaks truth

by scyllas (orphan_account)



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: Drabbles, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, a moment in the life of npcs, gratuitous use of italics and parentheses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-28
Updated: 2015-01-22
Packaged: 2018-02-14 22:25:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2205264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/scyllas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Heart murmurs secrets, and one cannot help but hear them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Abbey of the Everyman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On Overseers

_He fears the influence of the Outsider_

He is one of the younger Overseers, fresh-faced and new to the grime and glory of Dunwall. Dunwall is vastly different from Whitecliff, from the way it smells to the way people react when they see him (or more accurately, his mask). They shrink back slightly, back to the shadows, and it unnerves him that the darkness is where they find comfort. 

“Outsider, deliver me,” they whisper when they think he cannot hear. “Outsider, help me.” 

The Outsider’s name hangs in the air like the ever-present stink of whale oil, wraps around his ears and burrows into his mind. _Outsider deliver us._ He rapidly shakes his head, and repeats the seventh Stricture under his breath until the meaning becomes dulled. 

He goes to sleep troubled, tossing and turning and gripping his sheets tightly between his hands. The breaths of his brothers and their wolfhounds do nothing to ease the tightness in his chest. When he finally drifts into a fitful sleep, he dreams of horrible things, of whispers that comfort and terrify, whispers that promise _power,_ of black smoke that creeps up his skin and smothers him, and of a smile that is too sharp. 

He wakes with his brothers’ faces hovering above him.They frown, and he knows that they are suspicious. “Are you alright? You were thrashing about.” 

“Yes,” he lies, wiping the sweat from his forehead. “I am alright.” 

(The whispers linger, and he cannot stop them.) 

:.:.: 

_He feels poorly and suspects a witch’s curse._

It begins on the second day of the week. He wakes shivering, thin shoulders shaking almost violently. 

"Jeremiah, you do not look well," someone says. He does not look as he pushes himself up, wincing at the pain in his joints. 

"I am fine," he mutters as he waves them off. _"I am fine."_

(The words would be easier to say if he himself believed them.) 

:.:.: 

_He recites the Seven Strictures, but he is thinking about Blood Ox Steak._

He is hungry, so very hungry. Oh, what he would do for someone to take his place so he could eat. Delicious steak served on a platter and a glass full of the cheapest alcohol he could scrounge up. His stomach grumbles, and he pats it absentmindedly. One more hour, he reminds himself as the fifth Stricture rolls off his tongue. 


	2. The Golden Cat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On the courtesans in the Golden Cat. Warnings for implied sex trade and child prostitution.

_The girls do not like this new Madame. She is not kind. Not at all like the old one._

"May the Void be kind to her," they whisper as they close the Madame's eyes, careful of the blood that still trails down her face.

(The fever had taken fast, too fast, and she passed hours after her eyes began to bleed. The others were not so fortunate.)

"Throw her body in the river along with all the other bodies," says the new Madame when she sees them mourning. Her voice is brisk and unfeeling. "Business starts tomorrow."

"Yes, Madame Prudence," they say, hiding their hurt over their fallen. "Of course, Madame Prudence." They are the picture of obedience, but in the darkness of the early dawn, as the last body disappears into the water, they curse her name.

:.:

_She is a plague carrier, infectious, but not ill. And she knows it._

Men fuck her. These men die. It is a revenge she wants no part of, but she is a slave to it. The other women, they know, they _must_ know.

Every week, another man beds her. By the end of the month, earlier if they are unlucky, they are carted off to the Flooded District. Prudence never seems to care that her patrons die off faster than the city can spawn them.

"A shame," she whispers almost automatically when another courtesan murmurs of another death. "Such a shame."

(A man that is not a man knows that in another version of the same world, she would have had pleasure in knowing the Flooded District fills because of her. He muses: which girl, this one or the other, is more cruel?)

:.:

_When she was ten her mother traded her for a bottle of wine._

There was a time when she would cry at the sight of a wine bottle, full of Tyvian red or empty and broken on the side of the street.

("My mother, _where is my mother_?" she wailed. "Where are you taking me?"

"Away," said the man, tightening his grip on her arm. "Now quiet."

She was afraid that he would break her bones, and she bit her lip raw to keep silent.)

Now there is only a sharp twist in her stomach, one that she ignores until it dulls. Her nails dig into the soft skin of her belly.

"Florence," Madame Prudence barks, breaking her reverie. "You are requested."

She rises, brushing the imaginary dust off her skirt. "Follow me," she says to her customer, coy and sweet, just the way they like it.

There is no time to dwell on the past now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow this turned out a bit darker than I meant it to be. This was written during a five hour car drive, so please tell me if there are any glaring mistakes!


	3. Bottle Street

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On the thugs at Bottle Street. Warnings for past/implied child abuse.

_His father was one of the first to die of the plague._

He does not look at the body with remorse nor regret. He tries to, oh, how he tries.

He tries to remember a time when his father spoke kind words or wrapped his arms around him as a comfort, not a threat. He cannot, _he cannot—_

He leaves without a heavy feeling in his heart.

:.:

_A mudlark until twelve, sifting through the filth, until he could use a knife._

"Spare me, spare me, please!" pleads the man, some rich noble man that would have never looked at him twice. He keeps his grip on the knife tight and his grip on the man's throat even tighter.

("Such a large boy." His mother recoiled. "He's like a cow."

"Those arms'll be good for somethin'," replied his father, peering at him with squinty eyes. "Maybe he'll be a farmhand. In Serkonos.")

:.:

_He feeds a stray dog every night. He named her Billy._

He names the dog after his sister, now long lost to the snows of Tyvia.

"C'mere," he grunts, gesturing to the bowl full of meat scraps and jellied hagfish.

(He pours just a little of his share of Sokolov's Elixir into the bowl. He doesn't know if dogs can get the plague, too.)

Billy trots over. She is not a big dog, more rat than wolfhound, but she barks and bites with a ferocity that demands respect. She looks at him with careful eyes, shining black, and he stares back.

She eats until nothing is left in the bowl, the last of it licked away. She nuzzles his foot briefly before running back into the shadows, _scritch scratch_ of her nails on pavement soon lost to the hum of electricity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the inconsistent updating and the short chapter; school took over for a while ^_^"


	4. The Flooded District, part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On Whalers, a High Chaos run

_There is something about this one. A memory? From before?_

She was the one to hold the little one, Emily. She squirmed and kicked and clawed and slapped and fought.

(They blinked to- somewhere, she can no longer remember. Was it the empty building near the whale slaughterhouse? Or was it in the Flooded District, closer to base? Outsider’s eyes, _how does she not remember_ -)

“Mother! Mother!” the little girl screamed. Her white dress was dirty with muck and blood, dried in small flecks.

She replied without meaning to do so. It slipped, like an ugly hagfish, out of her mouth into the open. “She’s not here anymore, child! She’s gone! Dead!”

“That’s enough, Jay.” The voice was calm, cold, and disappointed.

(Who was it? Thomas? No, no, Thomas was- he was- no, it must have been Rinaldo- no! Another Whaler, older. She speeds through each name, none of them catching. Who? _Who?_ )

She released the Kaldwin girl. The sobs echoed off the metal walls, multiplying around her ears.

(It is not often she regrets a job. She tries to drown out the wails of a grieving empress, but it haunts her. _You did this! You did this!_ )

:.:

_He is loyal to Daud, yes, but there is something else. Something... No, I cannot see._

“Let us go,” his love whispers in his ear. “They will not miss us if we leave, please.”

The sun shatters the dark of the night, dawn lighting the skyline. He swallows. Shakes his head. “We cannot.” _I cannot,_ he does not say.

“Connor, Daud’s days are done. Attano will come for his blood, and then where will we be? If he does not slaughter us, the Overseers will.”

“We are loyal to Daud, Lewis. _I_ am loyal to Daud.”

Lewis grasps his hands, bring it up to his lips. "I must go,” he says without a waiver in his voice. There is a pause. “I have the money,” Lewis says, desperation flooding his voice. “There’s enough for both of us.” The grip turns painful. He says nothing. “ _Please_ ,” Lewis begs. “ _Don’t let me go alone_.”

(It is a conversation well worn. He considers it. His answer is the same.)

He swallows. Sets his jaw and swallows again. “No, love.” His words are soft, and he pulls his hands away. “I cannot, I’m sorry.”

Lewis stands, sudden. “You’ll die here. _You’ll die here_.” His voice trembles.

He stands as well. “We will see,” he whispers. He presses a kiss to the Lewis’s mouth. “Now go. The ship will not wait for you.”

Lewis embraces him. He can feel the rapidness of his heartbeat. “I’ll come back for you. I will, I promise. _Outsider’s bloody eyes, I promise_.”

He says nothing, kissing Lewis’s forehead. In a flash-- no, an absence of light, _a void_ \-- Lewis is gone.

(The man who is not a man watches. Connor lives, makes it out of the Flooded District with a broken leg and scars. Lewis returns. _Predictable_ , he thinks. _Boring_. He lets it runs its course. There are other, _more fascinating_ things to see.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took a while! School took over for a while (again!) and then midterms came and whoo— it was a rough ride.
> 
> Edit (7 Jan 2015): wow, mobile done messed that up. Done messed _me_ up. I fixed it up some, hopefully it isn't as crappy now.


	5. The Hound Pits Pub, part I

_She dreams of freedom, and the decks of whaling ships fast after the beasts at sea. But alas, she is a woman._

It feels so long ago, almost beyond the grasps of her memory: the spray of salt on her skin, the wind curling and knotting her hair as the ship sped across the water. The scales of fish flickered silver as they passed them by.

(She almost fell in, she recalls, after she tried to reach down and grab at a fish, thin hand skimming the surface of the water before a swooping feeling and a sudden arm around her waist. She cried out as she was lifted; the little fish sped away.

“Callista!” her mother scolded, both worry and relief lacing her words. “Be careful, darling. Even young hagfish will bite.”)

She looks out across the water, where the sun sets orange and the water glows like fire. Her lips tug up into a wistful smile. Oh, what she would give to feel as she did in that moment! The feeling of flying, the sun warm on her face, and victory almost in her grip.

(She was ten when she first tried. “No, Callista.” Her father would not look at her. “Never."

“But-”

“It’s not your place, lovely girl,” her mother murmured soothingly. “Wouldn’t you rather have pretty dresses and jewels?”

“Can’t I have both?”

A moment passed, her parents looking at each other oddly. As if she was a puzzle with a missing piece. “No,” they said. But their words were uncertain, and Callista felt a swell of triumph.)

-

She is a little broken, she thinks. Years of conditioning and “no, no, no, _no_ ” have made her...similar to her parents.

“No, Emily,” she says with exasperation, almost shutting the textbook. “It’s not your place to hunt whales.”

“Why not?” Emily’s face flickers, and she sees herself. Chastised and defiant and hurt.

“Because-” she falters. Grits her teeth and clears her throat. Takes a breath and tries again. “Because pirate queens do not hunt whales. How will you hunt and fight?” She nudges Emily’s hand with her own.

The grin that Emily gives her twists her heart tight and warms it, and she feels like she is flying once more.

(The answer is not _no, no, no_. It will never again be _no, no, no_. The answer is now _ah, why not?_ )

:.:.:

_There was a younger brother. An artist: sensitive, soft. Taken at nine by a fever. Havelock loved him truly._

His brother was his opposite, Havelock remarks as he sits in bed.

(The lamp light is weak, and his face is thrown in shadow. The darkness creeps up on his legs, inky black climbing up his body.)

He remembers that his hands were always covered in something. Paint, chalk, charcoal, clay dust. “Is it too much?” he would ask, holding up a large sheet of paper. “I think there’s too much red.”

Of course, he said it was lovely because it _was_ ; Dunwall, bathed in reds, blues, and yellows, in approaching twilight.

(If Sokolov could only see what his brother made, how jealous he would be! Gifted hands that made and created without fault. Perhaps that was why the Void claimed him so early.)

“He was sick, Farley,” his father said softly, hugging his shoulders. He wanted to throw the arm off. “Surely you understand that.”

“Yes,” he whispered. _No!_ his mind screamed. _NO!_

(His brother was his opposite, Havelock remarks as he sits in bed. They both had gifted hands though, he supposes. One covered in paint, the other covered in blood.)

:.:.:

_Each and every night the black-eyed Outsider visits upon Piero’s dreams._

It has become familiar, the Void. Not like the little empress’s grins, or Lydia’s complaining, or Corvo’s constant, reliable quiet.

It is familiar like a blade flashing in the street, a rat biting at his heels, a wrapped up body in the alleyway.

He can no longer say that he is surprised when he appears like the high tide to an unlucky swimmer.

The Outsider, Piero has come to learn, is not someone -something?- that can be familiar. The Void is _unchanging_. With all his studies, with all his words, he cannot describe what it feels to stand somewhere that does not age.

(Unnerving would be close. Uncanny would be better.)

The Outsider changes and ripples like a reflection on water. He _is_ , then simply _isn’t_.

“What am I to do?” Piero asks. Begs.

A smile like a sharpened knife and eyes like the murky black of the Wrenhaven at night. “Do better.”

(He wakes without flourish. He never remembers what he dreams, only words that he presumes come fro his own subconscious. _Do better_. A knock on the workshop door. He swipes a hand down his face and gets up.

**  
**It’s a new day, and he must _do better_.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope everyone had an awesome new years!


End file.
